Snake Eyes

 

I should start off this review by stating I have never been the biggest G.I Joe fan. I vaguely remember the animated show from when I was a kid, but that was about it. So, if you're coming into this review wondering how closely this movie adheres to the source material I am afraid you have come to the wrong place. My interest in seeing this one was more of in spite of it being a G.I Joe film rather than because of. But I saw it with a friend who is a much bigger G.I Joe fan and she certainly seemed satisfied so take that for what you will. I was more just craving a Martial Arts flick and the fact that it had Henry Golding, Iko Uwais, and Samara Weaving amongst it's cast members didn't hurt either. 

Snake Eyes (played by Henry Golding) has been living as a drifter ever since he witnessed his father gunned down by a mysterious assassin who makes his victim roll a pair of dice to see what their fate is. Snake takes his moniker from the pair of ones his father rolled that night. He has been making ends meet fighting in the underground fighting circuit. It's there that he catches the attention of Yakuza boss Kenta (played by Takehiro Hira) who offers Snake a deal. If Snake will work for him, he will help Snake find his father's killer. One day, Kenta asks Snake to prove his loyalty by shooting a traitor. Snake is unable to go through with it and helps him escape instead. It turns of the man in question, Tommy (played by Andrew Koji) is Kenta's cousin and both were in line to run Clan Arashikage, an ancient Ninja order devoted to maintaining preserving order and maintaining peace. Kenta tried and failed to kill his cousin and was subsequently banished. Grateful, Tommy takes Snake back to the Clan compound and having seen his skills as a fighter asks him to join Clan Arashikage. The current leader of the Clan, Tommy's grandmother Sen (played by Eri Ishida), agrees provide Snake can pass three challenges overseen by two masters, Hard Master (played by Iko Uwais) and Blind Master (played by Peter Mensah). The Clan's head of security, Akkio (played by Haruka Abe), doesn't trust Snake and turns out she is right because Kenta set up Snake to make it look like he betrayed him to earn Tommy's trust and infiltrate the Clan. He is to retrieve the Clan's sacred Jewel of the Sun and trade it to Kenata for his father's killer. But as Snake bonds with both Tommy and Akkio as he trains for the three challenges, he finds his allegiances challenged and must choose between his new friends and his overwhelming need for revenge. 

The film was directed by Robert Schwentke from a script by Evan Spiliotopoulos, Joe Shrapnel, and Anna Waterhouse. The screenwriters manage to craft a reasonably entertaining story, even though parts of it do feel very cliche at this point. The whole child witnessing the death of a parent and vowing revenge on the killer is a very well worn trope and the movie only gets away with it barely because they have Snake face his lifelong desire and decide if it's worth betraying the people who have presented him with a potentially better future for it. Far more interesting for me as a viewer was the three challenges Snake must face to join the Arashikage, as well as the two Masters who help train and guide Snake along the way. Even if this too is a familiar trope, the filmmakers do a better job of making it feel a little more fresh and kept it intriguing for me. Schwentke does a reasonably good job staging the action sequences even though he does rely on the damn shaky cam too much and the quick cuts are at times too quick to even really get a good idea of that is going on. Also, he commits the cardinal sin of setting up a really great fight sequence between Iko Uwais and a whole group of Yakuza and then cutting away just as it was about to start and not going back to it until the fight was basically finished. I was so irritated by that narrative choice I wanted to scream. Aside from that though, the filmmakers handle the action reasonably well, even as the film suddenly shifts and takes on a vaguely more fantastical angle once the Jewel of the Sun is unleashed. 

The cast assembled for the film is quite impressive. Henry Golding does well as Snake Eyes both with the more action oriented aspects as well and doing a good job portraying Snake's internal conflicts. Andrew Koji likewise does well as Tommy and plays off Henry Golding quite well so their burgeoning friendship becomes one of the strengths of the film. I've long been a fan of Iko Uwais so seeing him turn up in this was one as Hard Master of the main reasons I wanted to see the film and while he does very much have a supporting role, he has his fair share of memorable moments in the film too. Peter Mensah also impressed me a lot in his role as Blind Master, including a rather cool scene between him and Snake as he administers the second challenge. Takehiro Hira does his best with his villain role as Kenta, even if the role is written as a fairly routine baddie character. Far more entertaining was Úrsula Corberó as Baroness, who is clearly having fun with her Cobra aligned villianous role. Samara Weaving shows up in the second half of the film and has some fun in her role as Scarlett, a G.I Joe agent sent to help assist the Arashikage.  

Overall, Snake Eyes is pretty much exactly what I expected. It's not a perfect film by any means, but it does have it's moments that made it worthwhile viewing to me. Will it be the same for everyone? Well, that depends on if the elements I described above appeal to you as the viewer or not. The action sequences could have been a executed a bit better and the plot at times was a little bit predictable (can we discontinue shaky cam already? I hate that so much. But at least this movie wasn't as bad as some). But it did still have enough talent and surprises to keep me entertained on a hot Summer afternoon and isn't that what movies released this time of the year supposed to do anyway? I will say this though, the film definitely needed more Iko Uwais. But I may just be a little biased in that regard.